Page 41 - Maritime Services and the Kill Web

The Maritime Services, the Allies and Shaping the Kill Web

Air Marshal Davies: We have a project, Air 6500, which is designed to get to this capability, and we have
tactical pieces relevant to such an effort.

“But we are certainly not there.

“We should be starting with, “How are we going to coordinate air warfare destroyers, space-based
communications, F-35, future frigates, Triton and P-8 into an integrated operating picture?

“How do we coordinate all of the command and control, including the civilian air traffic control sensors?

“How do you get them onto the same sheet of music?
“How do you begin to get all the different parts of the national orchestra to play a tune we have not finished
writing yet?

“We are working to shape intellectual warriors who allow us to use those disparate elements, and pull them
together.

“And without that web, without that integrated air and missile defense, within which we have to plug our allies,
or at least make it pluggable, we’ll have fallen short.

“That is one of the next big steps for us.”

The Network as a Weapon System: The Perspective of Rear Admiral
Mayer, Commander Australian Fleet

2016-09-10 By Robbin Laird

During the Williams Foundation seminar on evolving approaches to air-sea integration, Rear Admiral Mayer,
the Commander of the Australian Fleet, focused on the concrete and specific challenges facing the evolution of
the Royal Australian Navy as a key element of the joint force.

He argued that the Army, Navy and Air forces were evolving in the context of tapping shared networks to
empower their platforms to form an extended battlespace.

But the challenge, he observed, was to work through how to most effectively shape, coordinate and execute
effects from the networked force while retaining decision authorities at the lowest practical level to achieve
speed of decision.

He highlighted that the Navy was returning to a task force concept but one, which was 21st century in
character, whereby Navy was tapping into ground and air assets as “part” of the task force, rather than
simply focusing on Navy operated assets.
This evolution of the task force effect and the networked approach, clearly in the mode of what the US Navy
is referring to as the “kill web,” will require the evolution of capabilities, both in terms of connectivity, and
training.

During the seminar he characterized the network as a weapon system with “no single master” and that one of
the ADFs challenges was to shape the evolving network in order to effectively operate in a distributed multi
domain task force.

“Each service is designing its platforms and enabling their potential through the elements of a common
network.

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